How do antidepressants fix problems?

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Do they get you friends and relationships?

No, they just drug you a bit.

It's good for the pharmaceutical industry though.

They don't and can't. They just change your chemicals so you can at least try to deal with your problems.

I find my sensory overload is a lot worse when I have an anxiety attack. Controlling anxiety for me helps me deal with aspergers symptoms.

When my anti depressants kicked in it was like I had been looking at the world through a dirty glass and then someone had cleaned it. Things lost their dull edge. I was better able to compartmentalize my emotions. Before meds when I thought about a past painful event, the emotions would come back full force. Now I can think about the same event and think, yes, that was painful but not feel the emotions physically. If someone says something mean to me I don't dwell on it for days. I can put it out of my mind. I can tune out minor annoyances like noise better. I am better able to accept my own flaws without beating myself up for them.
What they haven't done for me is increase a desire for socializing or give me the will to do stuff.

No, they just might help you deal with problems a bit better.

They don't. They help change brain chemistry so it's easier to face problems, they also suppress emotions.
The people they are best for are the pharmaceutical companies.

I have recently begun taking a low does of Temazepam at night, and it seems to be helping my brain rest more during the night so I have more mental energy for dealing with things during the day.

As someone who tried for my whole life to "snap out of it" and couldn't and someone who looked at life like a life sentence and who regularly looked forward to death, I can say anti depressants probably saved my life. They are not panaceas and they don't work well for everyone. I don't like big Pharma either but if you haven't experienced life long debilitating depression and had your life made at least more bearable by meds, then please put the cynicism aside. It's easy to assume what you don't experience personally is invalid. We certainly experience that attitude enough already don't we?

They don't fix problems, but they can make it easier to deal with them. I had such bad anxiety that I would practically freak out if I was around other people. I started a low dose of Prozac (fluoxetine) a few months ago and the change has been amazing. I'm not at all nervous to leave the house, and in fact, I actually enjoy it. I feel more confident and happier.

I got to a point where I was simply unable to function, couldn't leave the house, etc. before starting antidepressants 4 years ago. They greatly help my anxiety and obsessive-compulsive traits as well.

Most commonly prescribed antidepressants are SSRIs and SNRIs. They increase the levels of a chemical called Serotonin in your brain which is a neurotransmitter that "might be responsible" for "transmitting positive feelings of well being". However, the connection between Serotonin deficiency and anxiety and depression is not a scientifically proven fact. There are NO scientific research papers (academic, peer-reviewed) out there that prove this except for some pseudo-science propaganda funded by big pharma. No self-respecting academic neuroscientist will stand behind this theory.

There is just drug statistics that show that about 25% of patients benefit from antidepressants which is about the same as number of patients who took placebo during tests. Antidepressants are just as good as placebo. Between 30% and 50% of people treated with antidepressants do not show a response at all! It's the pharmaceutical industry that turned this into "a fact" through campaigns and advertising and manipulation or outright bribery to push their drugs, to the point that many doctors present this to you as a fact, which is not true.

According to NIH about the same number of patients improve spontaneously or through therapy, assuming they don't have any other underlying issues that cause depression and anxiety. Also, Serotonin levels vary between areas of the brain. Antidepressants increase serotonin levels globally or even randomly which may cause various reaction among different people depending on their pre-existing Serotonin levels.

A person with Aspergers, or any person for that matter, may have normal Serotonin levels and that's what makes them super-sensitive to drugs that increase Serotonin levels. Because increasing the levels of Serotonin will make you feel sick too: hyperactive, edgy, headaches, confusion, insomnia, hypersensitivity to stimuli and pain it might lead to burnout, exhaustion, fast heartbeat and... anxiety, duh..., it might even lead to Serotonin Irritation Syndrome (SIS). Then you need to have your Serotonin levels lowered quickly or you will die.

So, if you're within that 25% of people who respond positively to them these drugs actually can make you feel better. Just don't believe that hype surrounding them since they don't work for most people. None of them worked for me though. I either didn't respond at all or had exaggerated, unbearable side effects and/or they made my anxiety and depression even worse. One screwed me up so badly I had to stay home for a month to recover. I've tried over 10 drugs over the last 5+ years.

I believe that study that showed the placebo affect was made on people who had not suffered from clinical depression for years and years and were in the early stages of their depression. I was on anti depressants and felt fine and then went off the meds. The first time I hit an stressful emotional situation I crashed badly and started planning my suicide, something I had thought about for years but never acted on. Depression for some is not just feeling bad because things aren't going your way. For some it's a frigging black hole. Actually, I'm still mildly depressed. They're not a magic pill. I hope people who are really suffering don't dismiss the idea of getting medical help for their depression because they've heard it's all a big scam.

I hear that you need to be on antidepressants roughly twice as long as you've been depressed. For myself, that means the rest of my life. I was undiagnosed for most of my life because it didn't occur to people that children could suffer from clinical depression. I won't argue that it's often over prescribed.